I Thought Only of You
by Ruan Chun Xian
Summary: LBD84 - Lizzie shouldn't have to deal with Wickham alone, not as long as Darcy could get to him first. "That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."


**I Thought Only of You**

* * *

_(LBD84) Lizzie shouldn't have to deal with Wickham alone, not as long as Darcy could get to him first._

_"That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you."_

* * *

Even before the door had closed completely behind him, Darcy had reached into his pocket and pulled out his own phone. Sure, it would take only a couple of minutes and a flight of stairs to reach his own office and tell Mrs. Reynolds to prepare the car for Lizzie, but it was a couple of minutes that neither Lizzie nor he could afford to lose. Even if Lizzie could leave the moment she hung up the phone, it would probably still be a moment too late.

He wished he didn't understand how Lizzie was feeling. He wished he could look into her eyes and not see himself reflected there. He wished every tremble in her voice in an attempt to hold back tears didn't bring back floods of memories. But he did understand; he knew all too well the crippling fear and helplessness that must be shaking through her entire being now and his only comfort was, at least, she accepted his help. A few months ago, she certainly would not have done so.

He walked briskly down the corridor, and fairly barked the order for a car ready to leave for the airport _immediately_ and a flight booking for Lizzie through the phone to Mrs. Reynolds. If his secretary was startled by his uncharacteristically rough tone and the fact that he called from his cell instead of an extension line, she didn't let it show and simply answered with a crisp, "Of course, right away". Just as he hung up, he arrived on his own floor and, from the end of the corridor, could see Mrs. Reynolds already making another phone call and her fingers flying over the keyboard presumably to book a ticket. There was no doubt that everything would be taken care of and Lizzie would be home that night. He gave his secretary a nod of gratitude as he strode past her desk into his own office to grab his own car keys. Barely a few seconds later, he was striding down towards the parking lot, his plans buzzing in his head.

_ (No, do not think of the theatre, William Fitzwilliam Darcy. That only invites questions of what her actual answer would have been, whether she would actually go to the theatre with just you, and then regrets of a lost opportunity. Those things are not the point right now. Focus! Focus!)_

There was no doubt in Darcy's mind that he needed to stop this. He still had to work out the details of exactly how, but he must stop George before this tape was released and brought shame on not just Lydia, but Lizzie and Jane as well.

So this was the downside of interactive media. Lizzie has thousands and thousands of YouTube subscribers and even if she didn't post the video they just shot, the link to George's website was apparently posted on Lydia's videos, which meant that Lydia's viewers would see it. And Lydia's viewers were very aware that Lydia's sister was The Lizzie Bennet. It didn't matter now whether Lydia knew what was going on. The internet could be so vicious and once just a part of it decided to blame Lydia regardless of her active involvement, Lizzie could not avoid the coming onslaught either.

He didn't need to check the comments on Lydia's channel to know that just the very idea of a sex tape was probably brewing up a storm there. The actual video could, at the very least, mean the end of Lizzie's YouTube career. Was it just earlier that week that he had told Lizzie how wonderful it was that she loved her vlog and was so good at it? He had been totally sincere in his words. When he had first watched her videos, even at places when it hurt most, he had to wonder why he was still soldiering on. It wasn't as if he needed to watch all 60 videos to understand her feelings. But he realised later on, when it all numbed a little, that Lizzie's videos had an sense of honesty, a heart and soul that was unique to her alone, and that was what made it all so addicting. It didn't matter that Lizzie didn't always say the most polite thing, the important thing was she was putting her very heart out there and it made a bridge between her and her viewers. No wonder her viewers commented and talked to her as if they were best friends. She was more than just talented – and Darcy had worked with more than his fair share of talent – she embraced what she did and it showed through and made her real. She deserved to take that passion even further, to stretch her wings once this project was finished, and continue to show the world all that she was capable of. She had such a bright future in the field and he could not bear to think that _George Wickham_ and his stupid stunts might place a stumbling block in her way.

And then there was the way she was almost laughing with delight, her eyes sparkling, as he entered the room earlier, and how that light just immediately went out as if someone had flicked a switched after just a few words of news from Charlotte. She had looked so empty when the call ended and he was sure, at that moment, she had forgotten he was in the room. It was only when he spoke that she startled and looked up at him, lost and dazed.

He had so wanted to pull her into his arms, to comfort her, before he even really knew what was going on, but he dared not. It was probably not appropriate, anyway. So he only settled for a comforting hand on her shoulder and offered his help in the gentlest tone he could manage, telling himself to think of Lizzie now, rather than rage against Wickham just yet. Already there had been tears threatening to spill from her eyes and she sounded so defeated as she told him he could not help. Perhaps another man would have hugged her then, but because he was William Darcy and he was a man of action, those unshed tears only made him more anxious to understand what was going on so that he could throw together his own plan. Lizzie couldn't – _shouldn't_ – deal with Wickham alone, not as long as Darcy could get to him first.

As she told him what happened, Darcy could hear the horror, the guilt, the self-blame in her voice. His heart broke with hers when she confessed she and Lydia hadn't spoken for over a month. He wished she would blame him – as it was right – instead of taking so much upon herself. Surely she remembered the reason she never told Lydia was out of respect for his privacy? If there was fault, it was entirely his. He knew George best, and he should have seen this coming. He would gladly have her words of blame, her insults and her anger directed at him, instead of that desperate attempt to compose herself and hide how terrified she really was.

He remembered too well how it was, opening the door to the condo, meaning to surprise Gigi with his vist… He remembered, too, all that came after: after the tears, the fight, the proof. He remembered fearing that aside from Gigi's broken heart, aside from just money and sex, there had been even more damage – as if all that wasn't bad enough. He remembered the dread of the days that followed, trying to help Gigi to mend while she alternated between curling up on the couch, crying and screaming that she hated him and at the same time, trying to head off Wickham spreading any unsavoury gossip around their circles. He remembered wondering if Gigi would ever be all right again, and whether it was all his fault. But Gigi had been lucky, there was never anything quite as scandalously public as this. Lydia was not so fortunate, and she would prove to be even harder to handle than Gigi, regardless of how much consent she provided to his. It was probably quite useless to work things from Lydia's end anyway, so Darcy would have to find Wickham first, while Lizzie rushed home to the comfort of her older sister and best friend.

There was a countdown – fourteen days, Valentine's Day – and Darcy would have to race against it. The video must never be released and the website shut down as soon as possible. It was bad enough that it was even up for a single second for a single person to see.

"We'll get you the first flight out of here," he told her, and by 'we', of course he meant himself. And of course she tried to refuse but there was no time to argue about this. If Lizzie thought he would really give in and leave her to find her own way home then obviously the one month she spent here still wasn't enough for them to understand each other.

But in the end, he "insisted" and she accepted. He tried not to notice the way her lower lip trembled and how her voice broke just a little as she called his name. There was sadness lingering but there was also a tenderness to the two syllables that had never been there before, though he tried to dismiss it, to pass it off and tell himself it was just grief that distorted her tone.

"Thank you," she said.

He simply told her that he would arrange for a car to take her to the airport, and left her to gather the rest of her things. He closed the door behind him, though he knew she would follow him out of it in just a couple of minutes, because perhaps she needed those few minutes to cry a little, then to gather herself.

However, before he left, he could see there was something like regret that shined in her eyes. He tried not to wonder whether amidst all the regret for Lydia, some part of her was also regretting the chances for the possibility of _them_ that now must be put aside.

But possibilities didn't matter anymore, he told himself. No matter how this turned out, Wickham had just broken the blissful oblivion of her time at Pemberley, where there were moments of just Darcy, Lizzie and the constructed world of her videos where they do costume theatre versions of themselves, having conversations that they might not normally have but were having anyway.

Now his job was to find Wickham and take away this source of her worry, of her pain, because for all the drama – constructed or not – that he managed to bring to her life, he owed it to her to settle this one. Once she had time to calm and think about it, she would eventually see that the ultimate blame lay in him, he who knew what Wickham was and never told a soul, because he was thought more about the damage it would do to his family name than the safety of others. When she realised that, any regret she had now would fade away. And then any regret he had would only be his own.


End file.
